


All That Was Lost Is Revealed

by sunshinestealer



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Older Characters, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:44:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinestealer/pseuds/sunshinestealer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wirt took the Beast's offer to become his lantern-bearer many years ago, and has been performing his duties diligently since then. When his old crush Sara arrives in the Unknown, however, he must figure out a way to outwit the Beast, and reconcile their relationship. One of these is going to be much harder than the latter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrival

When she awoke, all Sara felt was cold. Deep, bitter cold. The kind that sinks into your bones and leaves you breathless. She was laid down in a patch of ice, fat flakes of early snow drifting down from the sky.

The autumn sun had retreated behind a thick layer of cloud, casting a murky pallor over the surroundings. The gnarled branches of the tall trees, the prickly bushes, the yellowed scrubland uncovered by snow. There certainly wasn’t anywhere like this in town. Or anywhere she had _ever_ visited, for that matter.

Her body groaned as she sat up, chest heaving to take in a few decent breaths as she attempted to orient herself. Her head was aching too.

“Hello?”

“Hello?”

_“Hello?”_

Each time she called out, Sara had to cough for a few moments afterwards - it was as if shards of ice were stabbing inside her lungs. But no matter how often she tried, nobody answered. There was no birdsong, no whistle of the wind through the branches. Just eerie, unearthly stillness. And it was beginning to freak her out.

There were a few basics of survival training that everybody knew: head for high ground, make sure you keep yourself fed and hydrated, and to not take too many risks. When she was finally able to get up, Sara found herself a branch, snapped off at just the perfect length to be a walking stick. Her body was reacting sluggishly, her thoughts similarly drifting through her head at a snail’s pace. Was this what it was like to die from hypothermia?

A sense of fear and shame clawed at her. How did she get here? Why was she in this state? The amnesia certainly didn’t help with this matter -- no matter how hard she tried, all Sara could remember was… well, doing the normal day’s rituals. Getting up, dressing, eating breakfast, getting her schoolwork together, heading out, speaking to her professor about the upcoming term paper… And absolutely nothing after that.

Still, she continued onwards, refusing to let her mind come up with horrible scenarios to explain the hypothetical reasons behind the aching head, the stiffness of her joints, and how she had gotten into these woods in the first place.

 

* * *

 

“There she is.”

“Who?”

“A new arrival.” The Beast’s baritone rumbled with mirth, as he sank back into the shadows. His protegé would be most pleased.

The ancient being had been determined to let the Pilgrim know of this most _joyous occasion_ , the moment he had felt her presence in the Unknown.

Knowing she was an old flame of his only added to his amusement. It had only been the blink of an eye from the Beast’s perspective, but clearly, his lantern bearer’s childhood crush had grown up quite a bit. She was taller, with tightly-braided, long black hair and fully pierced ears. The ripped jeans and the damp flannel shirt she wore around her thin frame weren’t going to help her survive, especially as winter in the Unknown drew closer.

The Beast watched as the Pilgrim stared after the girl heading through the clearing below. He recognised her after a moment, shocked. His knuckles turned white around the handle of the lantern, and his voice quavered. “H-how could you?”

He chuckled. “Ask the Fates, Pilgrim. Not me.”

“I’ll get her out of here. I swear it.”

The Beast seemed to consider the proposal, his great shoulders heaving, the leaves on his cloak rustling as he attempted to stifle his laughter. “I wish you luck, my lantern bearer. It will make our time together a little more… _fun_ , I hope.”

The Pilgrim had every reason to be upset with him, he knew that -- the former human had sacrificed the life of his young sibling, placing the soul within the lantern. The Beast had plucked a tiny little light out of the ether as Gregory slipped away, putting on a display of theatre that he had only previously had to perform for a grieving father.

Of course, the Beast had  never lied to his assistant. He merely withheld the truth. Humans tended to react better to fear -- leaving better votive offerings, refusing to harm the forest from which he drew his power, and especially venerating him during the harvest and the springtime. He preferred to remain ambiguous, a legend spoken of in hushed tongues, told to children to frighten them away from the darker parts of the woods.

The Pilgrim continued to gaze after Sara, but he was seemingly too frozen by fear to go down, or call out to alert her. The Woodsman had scuppered the Beast’s early plans, when the two boys had first arrived, but the Beast took a great triumph in knowing that he had come out victorious. It was the last time he would ever see the Woodsman, his former lantern bearer too driven by grief and despair to ever leave his achingly empty cabin.

The lantern swung a little in the breeze. The Pilgrim looked down at the flame flickering inside, noting that it was growing weaker.

The Beast materialised behind his lantern-bearer, long, gnarled fingers settling on his shoulders as he spoke clearly into the Pilgrim's ear. "Oil," he commanded in a chilling breath. "Or, are your loyalties so weak that you would let Gregory's spirit burn out, only to replace it with hers?"

The Pilgrim had long since stopped being quite so... argumentative. But, apathy had replaced his former vim and vigour. Instead of a sullen, melancholy teenager with some youthful spark in him, the Beast now had an unresponsive, pathetic animal that had resigned itself to being the predator's chew toy.

It had gotten boring. At least the Woodsman was more prone to theatrical displays: anguished screams when he couldn't save the lives of the Beast's latest acquisitions; throwing that silly axe around as if it could do any damage to the eternal numen of nature; and of course, continuing to harp on about his daughter long, long after she had passed. Too stupid to ever realise he had been tricked. That was, until the Beast discarded him for a new apprentice.

The Pilgrim's early days were marked by a whole lot of rebellion. He clutched the lantern under his cloak, stomping off to try and find an exit out of the Unknown. The Beast took great pleasure in sending him in circles, predicting his lantern-bearer would go off in another direction the moment he thought the Beast was in the area. He sang, he appeared behind trees, and just when he thought he was blessedly alone, the Beast would come and shatter that illusion.

The Pilgrim had ushered a few anonymous souls through the Unknown. He did his duty as diligently as possible, leading the lost towards the path that leads towards Enoch and his eternal harvest ceilidh. No need to get lost and fall into misery.

The Beast wonders if if it is mere arrogance, reminding his apprentice regularly that he needs oil for his lantern.

He manages to extract oil from a few trees here and there. Mostly those who had already succumbed to the cold, falling asleep to the Beast's sombre lullaby. The flame remains lit, and the Beast tells the Pilgrim _he is glad Gregory's sacrifice wasn't for nothing._


	2. Beauty and the Beast

Morning had broken by the time Sara arrived at the little bluestone church at the brow of a hill. Exhaustion was beginning to creep at the edges of her mind, but she knew she had to keep her focus and find shelter. Like an automaton, she walked through miles of forest until eventually finding a way out. Well, a clearing at the very least. Blessed higher ground.

She hadn’t particularly thought of finding the church, but it was a welcome sight. She could get information about where she was, and how she had come to be here. Maybe the devotees would take pity on her and offer her something to eat. Hopefully, a ride home too. Plus, church pews weren’t all that uncomfortable, if nobody was there yet. 

As the autumn sun rose in the sky, Sara climbed the hill, slippery as it was from an earlier shower of rain. The church was like many Sara had seen before in her life — a simple prayer hall built in either the 18th or 19th century, with an enormous cross standing pride of place on the roof. Whoever had built this church had a flair for European architecture as well, with a triptych of angels emblazoned at the top of the heavy wooden door, with a cast iron latch. 

Summoning up what remained of her strength, Sara heaved the door open. The church was freezing on the inside, not helped by the flagstone flooring and the stone walls. She hugged around her middle, clenching her teeth so they wouldn’t chatter so much. She found a pew and laid down upon it, adjusting a cushion for her head and looking up at the masonry. Sara hadn’t paid much attention to church in her formative years, but now she was taking Architecture as her major in college, she could put her skills to good use, tired as her brain was. This church wasn’t particularly Gothic, and it wasn’t laden with iconography except for the small stained-glass windows. There was an altar, a pulpit, and Bibles and hymn books stacked towards the entrance of the church. She wasn’t sure particularly what denomination this church would have been, but it served its purpose as a religious temple.

Unbeknownst to Sara, this meant that the church was hallowed ground. Wirt had made particularly sure that Sara got there, slipping away from the Beast to try and keep her on the right path. Well, in a rather minute way, once rustling bushes when she went off course to put her back on track. Wirt was just thankful she had mainly taken the right path — the others just led further into the forest. Right now, her safety was his priority — and tracking her from the shadows had been the sole way to do it, tucking the lantern in his cloak and trying to remember everything little geographical detail he had learned about this forest over the past ten years.

Wirt sighed with relief by the trees at the edge of the clearing. He’d always thought hallowed ground was just a myth. But the first time the Beast had walked with him through the Unknown, the deity had pointed out the building with some frustration in his voice. It was confused as to why it remained in place. Why humans were so stubborn as to hold onto their beliefs even when they had been ignored by their gods. The souls stuck in the afterlife, doomed to do nothing but continue on as if nothing was wrong… and be turned into trees if they wandered too far into the woods. Each soul in the Unknown had a different time in which it would ‘pass on’. This was relatively short for those whose bodies were still living; but the Beast knew of many souls who had been here for several lifetimes, and hadn’t even noticed the time passing.

He watched the flame skip around in the lantern. In a way, it reminded him of how Greg used to be — never able to sit still, a soul that burned brightly and was eager to make friends with anybody and everybody. It had been painful to look at for the first time. He never thought he was the crying type. More the ‘despair in silence in his bedroom, spirit only soothed by however many Karajan records it took to make the bitter feelings go away.’ When Greg was born, he had despised him, mainly for the attention he was suddenly getting. The horrible feeling that his mother and stepdad were starting a new chapter of their lives as their own family, independent of any remnants that Wirt’s dad ever existed at all. (As for that, Wirt was told in no uncertain terms at the age of seven that Dad had simply left. His car was missing from the driveway, his possessions were gone from the house. Mom would never fully explain why, and Wirt’s father never called or visited again.)

But now… more than anything, he wanted to see Greg again. He wanted to listen to however many silly rock facts Greg could come up with, however many little marching songs he could make up on the spot. He’d sit and watch Greg’s growing collection of Disney tapes with him, rather than stomping up to his room to be by himself. 

Greg’s soul was in the lantern now, Wirt knew that — and it could never be released. Only burned out. A soul bound in this fashion could never pass onto ‘the next life’, as the Beast termed it. It would only ever burn out, at which point it would die an eternal death. Wirt had tried asking the Beast questions about whether this meant that human souls were reincarnated, but the deity remained infuriatingly vague.

He wanted to see all of his family and friends again. He wouldn’t have even minded seeing Jason Funderberker. Or the football players at school who teased him in the halls for being a ‘little weed.’ There was Sara, of course… and he had vowed to himself to protect her. He had failed already once with Greg.

If he failed with Sara… he shuddered to think. Would that be another way in which the Beast could toy with his emotions? Would Sara’s soul join Greg’s in the casing of the lantern?

Being allied with The Beast meant that Wirt could not go into the hallowed ground either. Even on the edge of the clearing, close to the woods, Wirt felt uneasy. If he walked further up the hill, he knew there would be waves of nausea and an intense prickling under the skin, followed by shortness of breath and other ill feelings. He wanted to help Sara, and herding her into the church the way he had was the best way to go about it. Even if he couldn’t visit her, she was protected from The Beast.

Not that the Beast hadn’t noticed. The deity of the forest chuckled somewhere behind the Lantern Bearer.

“Admirable. But foolish.”

If Wirt had been feeling slightly uneasy before, he was now feeling nauseous — the kind you get when you’re met with extremely bad news, where all the colour drains out of your face and your stomach flips constantly. “You’re not going to get her, Beast.” He attempted to sound brave, despite his nerves.

Oh yes, this sort of false bravery was so characteristic of Wirt. The Beast rumbled again, mirthfully. “She cannot stay there forever. Sooner or later she will get ideas of leaving her prison. To seek warmer climes, or better shelters. If you force her to stay there, she may be the beauty, and you the Beast.”

That was almost poetic — and Wirt gritted his teeth at the horrible insinuation. “I could never be like you.”

“She has free will,” the Beast noted. “You don’t.” A pause. “Remember that.”

Wirt paled again, and coughed as his stomach roiled again.

Only this time, he coughed up leaves.

As the Beast faded back into the shadows, he howled.


	3. Faith

Sara had fallen asleep at some point. Her back ached from lying at an awkward angle on the pew. Sitting up, she tried to check her wristwatch for the time and discovered that the hands had stopped, frozen in position at (presumably) the time she had arrived here in the woods.

"Hello?" She called out. Didn't churches like these have a priest around at all hours? She'd seen the sun rise while walking to the church, so logically she couldn't have slept until too late in the day. She tried again - a fruitless effort. 

Sara walked to the church door, creaking it open a little to be able to see the sky outside. It was still a crisp autumm day, with a windchill that immediately raised goosebumps on her bare arms.

That was a point. She heaved the door shut again and rubbed her hands together, trying to conserve what little warmth there was. A grungy flannel shirt with a tank top, ripped jeans and Chuck Taylors might have been a cool outfit for the late summer start of her second year of college, but it was terrible once the temperature started to drop.

The church didn't have a heater in the middle of the building, like the one she had grown up going to in Minnesota. Her family had moved for her mother's new job, with the winters in their new state being blessedly warmer. 

Walking around the church, Sara desperately hoped there would be something akin to a blanket somewhere around. She tried to pull open doors to vestries and vestibules, only to find them locked. She looked around the altar, the pulpit, everywhere possible in this austere little church. It kept her warm, at least.

But still, there was nothing to be found.

She'd have to move on from here, that was certain. Slowly freezing to death in a church, or putting up with the cold winds outside temporarily until she came across somewhere else that would hopefully have a fire?

Sara never thought she'd be so thankful at the mere thought of a fireplace.

It was still light out. She could make it a few miles out if she made haste. If worst  came to worst,  there would be a cave at least in these forests? Hopefully vacated by the last bear to use it.

She'd never been the praying type, even at church - she often felt guilty asking God to try and fix her benign suburban problems when the pastor would pontificate on how awful things were in the world for those suffering persecution and the other ills of humanity.

But now, she'd need some divine intervention. Even if it did feel awkward.

"Dear God. Um. Hi. I don't know where I am. I don't know where I'm going... But I would like to be safe on my travels, wherever they lead. Most of all, I'd just like to get home. Er... amen?"

She cringed a little, putting her hands back down by her sides. She stood, and walked out of the church and down the hill.

Somewhere in the distance, still close enough to keep the church in sight, Wirt paled as the Beast directed his gaze to the church door opening, and Sara dashing off down into the wooded valley.

"I hate to say I told you so, Pilgrim..." The Beast said, darting off amongst the shadows after her.

Wirt nearly dropped the damnable lantern, his axe firmly held in hand as he cleaved at a chunk of the monster's shadow. This was enough to stop the Beast in his tracks, with an inhuman screech. He turned the lantern and held it right up when the Beast turned to look those fearsome, hollow eyes at him.

It wasn't a sight Wirt hadn't seen before - but it was still horrifying. More faces had twisted and turned into the Beast's flesh as Wirt had taken up the role of the Lantern-Bearer. He'd failed to protect so many...

The Beast was weakened by not only the light, but also the lack of oil Wirt had collected recently. Wirt knew they were running low, even before Sara arrived. He'd found a few bottles to keep them going in the Woodsman's old mill, but the lantern responded best to fresh oil. He still had three vials left... And just hoped that was enough.


	4. Chapter 4

The Beast was hardly pleased with its charge. Wirt had taken a path just out of sight of the girl wandering the Unknown, and while she sat down by a tree trunk to rest, the boy took out his ax and started to chop down an Edelwood. He took care with his swings, quiet enough to melt in with the general din of the forest, as the birds started to sing. It was daytime, and the Beast was stood somewhere in the shadows. Wirt was pleased - the creature was weaker during the daylight hours.

He stuck a spigot into the stump, and watched as the Edelwood oil gently percolated through the filter placed atop the rim of the bottle. Not quite the career he'd planned out for himself. As a youngster, Wirt had dreamed of growing up to be a university professor or a published poet - maybe even a writer for a widely circulated and respected newspaper. Although it seemed terribly stereotypical for a youth to gravitate towards complex novels of philosophy, theoretical thinking and long-form poetry, Wirt didn't particularly care. It gave him a leg up in English and Social Studies, two subjects he'd always enjoyed but never excelled in. Just by reading books on a university syllabus a few years early, he was sparing himself a lot of trouble in the long run.

Sara had graduated as salutatorian of her class, which was notably missing Wirt. An obituary was written in the school newspaper, and flowers were placed on his old homeroom desk. Throughout the town, people lamented the loss of such a bright youth, caught up in ridiculous Halloween antics that the local police hadn't paid enough attention to. October 31st the next year was sombre. Sara volunteered to take Greg out trick or treating, almost as if to clear her conscience. She instructed the boy to hold his breath as they passed the cemetery, and Greg couldn't help but hold her hand just that little bit tighter.

Jason Funderberker had moved away the following January after the incident, so even if Wirt hadn't been a ball of teenaged anxiety, perhaps he could have asked her out on a date. There was a new restaurant in town, cheap and cheerful and noted for doing the best milkshakes in the tri-county area.

Wirt's parents still showed up at the graduation, as hard as it was for them. Wirt's picture was placed onto a chair in the audience, and Sara did the introductory speech, fighting her voice quavering as she noticed Wirt's family in the front seats. The principal read a rather beautiful elegy, written by the boy's favourite teacher. The funeral had been just a few years earlier, and everyone had had time to grieve - but the brief service at the graduation brought back a stream of tears in several students. Even those who had pushed Wirt around since kindergarten had noted that it was a damn shame that he passed away at such a young age.

As was usual following high school, friends fell out of touch with each other. The town they all lived in was a 'nowhere place', as Sara's father termed it. "No wonder the youth are going off in different directions. What's here for them besides that factory and the high street?"

A small handful of her former classmates had headed east and west. Some to New York City, others to Los Angeles. Sara settled for the local college, despite having 'her pick' of more prestigious universities. The local college was respectable enough, and the accommodation was cheap, and only sixty miles' drive from home. She had dabbled with several subjects in her first year, but had firmly chosen Architecture as her major just a few months ago. If anything, she could follow her parents' footsteps into real estate and remodelling lake-houses, cabins and anglers' homes for tourists.

Sara had leant against the tree trunk to merely rest her legs. Her thighs and calves were aching after walking for miles without finding any form of civilisation. She'd only briefly been a Girl Scout, and had remembered a thing or two about 'the sun setting in the east'... or was it 'west'? She'd decided to go in a more easterly route, following her gut feeling.

Wirt had, of course, slipped amongst the shadows all the way. Hiking through the rough terrain of the woods hardly bothered him any more, and so long as he kept one foot in front of the other, the Beast wouldn't bother him about his failures or talk him into falling even deeper into despair. Even so, he could still hear the bone-chilling baritone as the Beast merrily hummed or sang an ancient tune.

She sloughed her backpack off her shoulders and wiled away some time with books. They would have been blessed company, had Wirt brought any. Those living around the Unknown weren't always literate - and those who did keep books on their shelves tended to have ones that were hand-bound, their contents full of old wisdom or half-remembered writings of oral folk tales. (Not that Wirt - as the Beast's Pilgrim - was always welcome into the domiciles of the departed.)

Sara had thin copies of Shakespeare (which she hadn't thrown out from last year's English Lit elective) and a few technical manuals. Her course's textbook (a dull, dreary read on the history of housebuilding in the Midwest) also weighed down her backpack considerably. If anything, it could be decent kindling.

As a neophyte architect, however... Sara pondered. Shouldn't she actually be  _making_ a shelter for herself? She wasn't hurting for trees and twigs and leaves. (And pages written by an overly pompous college professor.) You could rub two sticks to get a fire going, right? This environment was far too cold at night time, and it wouldn't hurt to have a campfire. Maybe even find some saplings, tie their branches overhead, and make a little roof to protect against the rain and snow.

She gathered twigs and leaves and dumped them into a large pile. It wasn't easy to find twigs that weren't at least a little moist - but she got a good handful of them after climbing some of the shorter trees in the area.

Wirt's attention was drawn away from the oil collecting by the Beast, who whistled rather appreciatively. "A resourceful one," it noted.

He wanted so badly to slam his ax down into the ancient deity's shadow, pointy end first. He watched Sara's efforts, gulping. "She's smart."

"Smart enough to outwit me?" The Beast asked, some mirth creeping into his tone. "Did you not think that of yourself, so long ago?"

"Th-that's different." Shit, he'd hesitated.

The Beast raised an ancient, clawed hand from out of the shadows of his cloak. The air, which had so far remained still, began to pick up, whistling through the trees and blowing out any cinders that Sara managed to bring up after almost rubbing her hands raw with the twigs.

Wirt glared. "Don't you dare."

"I am looking out for our  _best interests_ ," the Beast said, willing the winds to stop. "Greg's spirit is in the lantern. The lantern requires oil. Today, you found enough for three more bottles, Pilgrim. Therefore, we have six more days at the very most."

"Time passes differently here."

"Indeed," the Beast commented. "I'd pour some oil into the lantern if I were you."

Wirt obliged with a grunt.


	5. Chapter 5

Morning in the Unknown - during its more temperate seasons - was quite a sight to behold. The yellows, ochres, browns, rusts and oranges complimented each other beautifully, soundtracked by birdsong. It was warm, despite the shade from the canopy.

Sara hummed an old Cat Stevens tune to herself as she prepared herself for the day ahead. One her mother used to play on the stereo quite frequently. She had spent the night shrouded in shadows without much shelter, shrinking into herself in the hopes that she would eventually fall asleep and wake up unharmed.

The night had passed, and Sara was now filled with zeal. Despite her aching legs, back and feet, she had almost bounced up from her supine position, grabbed her backpack and looked for somewhere to wash her face. Blessedly, there was a little brook nearby.

The water glistened in the sunlight, cold and refreshing as Sara splashed it onto her face and neck. She took a quick mouthful, briefly wondering in the back of her mind why she hadn’t been thirsty for the past few days. Or hungry, for that matter.

She had a water bottle in her backpack, and decided to fill it up, just in case. This was the first real source of water she had found. Forests _should_ be verdant and fertile, with plenty of water to go around. This one often seemed as dry and arid as a desert winter.

Still, she had to keep on moving. Just to find _somewhere_ , and more importantly, _somebody_ to speak to. 

Maybe there was a ranger around? Who knew.

 

* * *

 

Wirt was glad that the Beast was less active during the daytime. He wasn’t quite sure where the deity slunk off to in the daylight hours, but he was glad for the silence. The foreboding, fearful feeling that the Beast was upon him still lingered, as it did in all of the creature’s victims. Escape was futile when the Hunter had their sights on you, and the Beast was more than willing to enjoy the chase until the prey exhausted themselves.

That was what puzzled Wirt at the moment. Sara was _right there_. He’d seen new souls in the Unknown wandering around in a daze. One of the Beast’s many titles was The Death of Hope. By casually manipulating their perception of surroundings and drawing them out into darkened areas with no hope for rescue, the Beast could inject despair into even the most cheerful of people. Then the Edelwood would start to grow, quickened by that awful song, which still put Wirt’s teeth on edge every time he heard it, from whichever direction.

But so far, the Beast was leaving Sara completely alone. Just happy to watch his Pilgrim wander around in the shadows after her. Foolishly trying to protect her from the cruel environment she had arrived in. Maybe the Beast was planning on hunting the girl down in one fell swoop, or drawing Wirt away just to bring him back later and show him the ‘work’ that had been accomplished in his absence. Even after all these years, though, the Beast was nothing if not capricious in his cruelty.

He came upon the tree Sara had been resting against for most of the night. Thankfully (or not), the Beast had distracted Wirt’s attentions, spiriting him away to another sector of the woods to chop up another Edelwood tree. Once the dawn had broken, the Beast faded away, with some parting words for his charge: “The lantern remains lit. Make sure it stays that way.” There was an edge to the tone that suggested a dire _or else_.

Wirt had walked back to that part of the woods, as if guided by some internal compass. The Unknown was so, so large. He doubted he and his brother had even covered one per cent of it up until their confrontation with the Beast, and the eventual bargain. Being allied with the Beast had its… perks. For one, no turning into an Edelwood tree. Second, the ability to tap into the ancient wisdom of the Beast, never becoming lost in the woods and even limited travel amongst the shadows, much faster than hiking the many miles it may have taken to find a fresh quarry. And then there was the matter of being in constant communion with the forest and the land, which had been overwhelming to the senses at first, but had eventually become a quiet susurration in the back of Wirt’s mind as the years drew by.

Sara’s backpack was missing, which meant she was on the move. Daytime passed in the Unknown the same as it did in the regular world — but time could only be measured by the height of the solar or lunar bodies in the sky. Sara would have probably noticed by now that the hands of her wristwatch had frozen in place. In the past, Wirt had come across one soul, a European immigrant from the 19th century. While here, he had tasked himself with clockmaking, chopping down the trees (yet wisely staying away from the Edelwood), and using the timber to make the casings for intricate, beautiful cuckoo clocks. But, of course, the timepieces never worked. Condemned to madness by this, the man had left the little hut he had built by hand, filled with cuckoo clocks that would never chime — and fallen into the Beast’s hands.

Right now, Wirt knew that it was morning, and a decent morning at that. Sara would cover a lot of ground today, without the need for shelter from the rain or wind. He searched in the back of his mind for the location of a nearby settlement — and certainly enough, there was. He’d just need to point her in the right direction, without her knowing of his presence, and…

No. Why would that even matter? He could tell her about the Unknown, he could tell her about the Beast. He could try and make sure that Sara went back on the ferry that had brought her here in the first place. Why should he continue to dither about his appearance? It wasn’t like he looked completely inhuman, like the Beast.

The deity commented, when the changes were causing velvety antlers to sprout, that: “no Lantern-Bearer has ever bonded with me in such a way.” Little comfort for someone coughing up Edelwood leaves, eyes heavy and stinging as they adjusted themselves to different wavelengths (resulting in the Beast’s - and now Wirt’s - pastel-ringed irises). 

Existentially, the change in appearance had convinced Wirt that his soul was now so corrupted, he was definitely bound for Hell. Not that he really believed in the concept before he came here. Surely this _was_ Hell, worse than anything _Dante’s Inferno_ could conjure up. 

Was the Beast a demon of some kind? He’d asked before, only for the creature to become ever more cryptic. The Beast had many names, and many different kinds of believers. Some believers thought in good or evil absolutes, but others saw a grey area, a creature of folklore who still needed to have tributes and respects paid unto them. Some even saw the Death of Hope as beautifully poetic. At least one Victorian poet, unknowingly astral projecting to different realms in her dreams, wrote of the Beast’s appearance amidst a canon filled with writings describing a dark, dreary autumn forest.

The fear of not knowing what lay ahead if he left the Unknown was what kept Wirt here, even under the miserable employ of an ancient deity like the Beast.

Like the Hunter, he could track spiritual signatures throughout the land. Usually, he tapped into this when the Beast noted the presence of a new soul. He’d never been able to rescue any of them, but he still tried. Sara was one of them.

She had taken off in some westerly direction, thankfully towards that village if she continued true on her path. The Pilgrim melded amongst the shadows, always keeping her within seeing distance. Any closer, and the girl would start to feel a grim foreboding — that the locals described as the Beast being upon them.

Sara would occasionally stop and look around, but quickly got back to moving after a swig from her water bottle. There was a long tunnel of trees to go through, and eventually, she would come across the settlement in the valley. Superstitious folk too, which the Beast took great delight in drawing out…


	6. Courage

Sara made a noise of frustration when the only civilisation she had found so far turned out to be starkly empty. The villagers had passed on. Lanterns remained lit, but only cinders remained in the fireplaces, and food had rotted in the pantries.

One thing Sara had noticed, though — these houses were done in a particular, colonial style. The kind that the European settlers could have only made through having absolutely nothing at their disposal but the materials around them. Lots of wood and cob with thatched roofs, but no signs of any luxuries from Europe. The houses were clustered around each other as if huddling together from the cold. (Which it was certainly getting…)

As far as she knew, there were no historical villages around the state, where bored school kids would feign interest on a Social Studies field trip. The forests around her hometown were expansive, certainly, but you still ran into _some_ modern civilisation after walking miles and miles, as she had. Not just a standalone church and an abandoned village.

She’d knocked on the doors of every single house, and slipped in through the open windows. There was nowhere for anyone to hide, even if they were the last survivors of whatever had emptied the place of its citizenry. She combed through the attic in one house, coughing and hacking for a good few minutes before admitting defeat. There was literally _nothing_ here.

Sara picked a blanket off of a rocking chair, figuring it would come in some use. The breeze that rattled in through the windows must have been unbearable, especially with the knowledge that it was only going to grow colder as winter marched on.

Still, it was better to be in a shelter than exposed to the elements, as she had been for the previous night. One house had a decent enough bed, despite the thick smell of straw that poked through the mattress covering.

Oh, well. Beggars can’t be choosers.

 

 

* * *

 

Wirt had passed through this village several times before. All around, you could hear shutters closing, doors slamming, and the terrified whispers of the locals as they peered out at the Beast’s Lantern Bearer. Their fear was quite… palpable, and the Beast himself, following in the shadows, had commented on how this despair deserved to be “savoured” over a longer period of time.

He had been tracking a soul that was desperately looking for shelter, and wound up leaving the safety of this community. Despite all warnings to the contrary, the young man insisted he would find his own way home.

Wirt had warned the young man again and again, never once mentioning the Beast but making sure to keep within the shadows. The Beast’s quarry eventually passed out from physical exhaustion after walking so many miles in the forest. Had the young man made it to Pottsfield, he could have survived, just a little longer… Wirt sighed.

The people of this village had somehow passed on en masse, something the Beast wasn’t too pleased about, tracking behind Wirt that evening and hissing about the wasted potential. As if it were all the fault of thew Lantern Bearer.

“Twenty five souls resided here,” the Beast said, a fringe of anger audible in the tone of voice. “More than enough to make an entire grove of Edelwood trees. Think of all that oil you could have used, Pilgrim…”

Just when Wirt was about to whip around and tell the Beast exactly where to shove it, the Beast’s lamplight eyes narrowed.

“…For your little brother’s sake. Perhaps you can _pretend_ to care about his soul every once in a while.”

He shivered where he stood, fighting his desire to look into the lantern’s light. Just to check on Greg. But he’d done the same before, following a cruel taunt from the Beast. All the act did was provide heightened anxiety, as the oil seemed to burn out quicker and quicker.

“Had you shepherded the girl nearer this location, rather than continually dawdle…” The Beast made a sound almost like a tut. “I’d make certain she finds her way back into the forest.”

The light in the lantern suddenly seemed to dim. Thinking quickly, Wirt set it down and uncorked a phial of oil from inside his cloak. The Beast seemed pleased.

“Good.”

 

* * *

 

The blessed moments when the Beast left his Pilgrim to his own devices were rare, but Wirt appreciated the solitude. He’d only allowed a small dribble of oil to go through the funnel, to test a certain theory. The light became brighter, not because of the oil that had been added, but because the Beast had vanished. Meaning the creature had control over the light in the Lantern. Somehow.

But if that were the case, why dim it to such a small degree? Why not snuff it out entirely? In his head, Wirt could still hear the cheering and laughter from Greg every time he looked into the Dark Lantern’s casing. But only when the Beast was around. Now, it was silent. Nothing but a small flame skipping around inside, casting light in the darkness.

Emboldened, he decided to ignore the nausea and anxiety that came from leaving the forest, and made his way into the house that Sara had entered on his watch.

He’d get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later.


End file.
